U.K.’s Fallon Says Offshore Wind Is Engine for Economy

By Alex Morales -
Aug 7, 2013

Offshore wind power is an “engine”
of the U.K. economy, Energy and Business Minister Michael Fallon
said today as he opened the world’s second-biggest wind farm at
sea.

Fallon was inaugurating the 1.3 billion-pound ($2 billion)
Greater Gabbard wind farm off eastern England, a joint venture
between RWE AG (RWE)’s Innogy unit and SSE Plc. (SSE) The 504-megawatt plant
will double in capacity once its Galloper extension opens in
2017, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said today in
an e-mailed statement.

The U.K. has more offshore wind capacity than the rest of
the world together, and last week ministers published a strategy
to attract more of the supply chain to Britain, where turbine
makers such as Siemens AG, Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA and
Samsung Heavy Industries Co. are considering building factories.
Currently no turbines are built in the U.K, while some other
components are.

“We want to see this sector grow even further,” Fallon
said in the statement. “This sector is an engine of our
economy. By the end of this decade, tens of thousands of
additional jobs could be created in the supply-chain for
offshore wind throughout the U.K.”

The government said last week it wants to boost jobs in the
industry to 30,000 by 2020 from 4,000 now, adding an annual 7
billion pounds to the economy.

Ministers want 50 percent of the capital expenditure for
offshore wind farms and 85 percent of the servicing spending to
be in the U.K. by 2020.

Greater Gabbard is second in size only to the London Array,
a 630-megawatt project by EON SE, Dong Energy A/S and Masdar Abu
Dhabi Future Energy Co. that opened east of the capital on July
4. Greater Gabbard is equipped with 140 Siemens turbines and has
been fully operational since last September.